Dark and Stormy
Turbulent clashing of ice against the glassy confines it resides in; cubed glaciers amidst a sea of swirling liquid darkness. A promise of slow inebriation held within, awaiting the man who made this personal storm. The light mixed with the dark. The cold mixed with the promise of internal warmth. The man’s eyes seemed to be focused on the mix of ginger beer, dark rum and bitters that he swirled in his hand, further mixing the unlikely companions, yet his mind was somewhere else. The man liked this drink both in taste and the name. It seemed a suitable choice when he had gazed at the laminated cocktail menu that had stuck to the bar with the residue of spilt sickly sweet cocktails. The storm he created in the cocktail, the one of many storms he had subdued with the calm of his gullet, mirrored both his thoughts and the weather that threatened to pull the rusted corrugated metal roof off the beach shack bar with every groaning shudder.
The Lightening ripped through the menacing sky again, rudely pushing its brilliance into the black canvas, illuminating everything briefly with its ethereal scar. He gazed out across the silvery surface of the sea, flattened and velvety from the warm rain that pushed down its intentions. A silvery nothingness that stretched as far as it could until the darkness claimed it again. The moment of tranquillity and illumination scurried away as quickly as it came, replaced by a deep growl, showing the truth behind the light.
He took a long drink, hoping to quell the storm inside his thoughts, yet it was doing nothing for him.
The stool he sat at rocked unsteadily as he shifted his weight and he had to steady himself against the wooden bar scrawled and scratched with the names of lovers, sailors and drunk revellers who had passed through this sandy respite over the years. Each scrawler believing themselves to be unique in their poems of the sea, Bob Marley lyrics or some cheesy proverb. Each one repeating the actions of countless others before them. Tonight it was just him in the bar. Few people wandered down the beach on a night like this, preferring to listen to the comforting sound of the rain from some brightly lit bar or to sit on the verandas of their rented beach shacks being lulled hypnotically by the sound of rain against their corrugated roofs. Each saying how “this was the life” as they stared thoughtfully out into the sea, bathing in their fairy tale of living off coconuts and their tanned bodies plucking lobster from the rock pools to cook over open fires each evening as someone played reggae songs on their guitar. They always returned to their sanctuary of concrete and steel, of ATM’s and coffee bars in the end, afraid of the reality of what it really took.
This was a night when his thoughts were his alone. Undisturbed by the repeated speeches he had to endure from the sunburnt pretenders. He had gotten drenched on the walk down the beach as the warm rain poured in an endless fury, the sand a pockmarked grey, each footprint washed away as quickly as it was formed. The dark shadowed forms of palm trees leaned menacingly forwards from the edges of the beach behind the washed up trees and driftwood that sheltered the scavenging crabs, their branches a consistent rustle as the storm searched out the land, threating to drop their green cannonballs with every gust. He had kept a distance from the trees, preferring to keep closer to the dark water that lapped up his legs. It didn’t matter to him that his trousers got soaked by the sea. The rain was doing a good job of that anyway. And he knew he would dry out soon in this heat. The equator sucked everything dry eventually.
He had no intention going anywhere soon. The barman dozed in the corner on a green plastic Heineken crate; a worn t-shirt with a faded image of Bob Marley smiling hung loosely on his dark skinned torso, equally worn denim shorts, frayed ends brushing down his deeply tanned and muscled legs were held by a line of worn nylon. The orange line salvaged from a neglected fishing net was the only connection, other than his callused and scarred hand’s, to his life before the tourists came to this island. The life before when he used to fish every morning before the sun warmed the sky, dark mornings when he used to venture out in weather just like tonight. Lonesome times when the squawking and scavenging gulls were the only friends, friends only for the time he threw them scraps of what they wanted. Sometimes the two lives felt the same.
The barman’s straw hat was pulled low down shadowing his eyes from the lone bulb that hung in the bar. The power source for the jaundiced yellow light was provided by the car battery that rested below the bar, the white crust of battery acid scaled across its rusted body. The barman neither cared nor was he bothered by this guest. Whatever things he did was his business. The barman didn’t care what he looked like. Men were men. He got paid all the same and this man tipped with every drink. He could stay here all night.
The man cared little for whatever surroundings he found himself in. He cared little for the past of the barman. He cared little for the history of the writings his arm rested upon, the once white sleeve of his shirt now an ugly pink, the bloodstains having been all but washed away in the storm he had ventured through. It was his own personal storm he now had to deal with. He finished the drink in one go and placed the glass on the wooden bar.
The remains of ice lay alone in the bottom glass, slowly melting into what they had once been.
He signalled the barman for another drink.
